I've still got the backing of Roman ­Abramovich, says AVB

Andre Villas-Boas insisted today he has the full backing of Roman ­Abramovich after a meeting with ­Chelsea's owner this week.

There has been speculation that ­Villas-Boas's future at Stamford Bridge is on the line after a poor run of results which have seen his side fall out of the Premier League's top four and in danger of a Champions League exit.

Villas-Boas today described next month's match with Valencia, when their Euro fate will be decided, as "life or death" but the Portuguese insists he is comfortable about his own position and will not change his philosophy of attacking football.

Referring to his discussions with Abramovich, he said: "They weren't critical meetings. There was no animosity, insults or critique.

"Roman Abramovich is happy to give me time to impose my philosophy onto the football club.

"The spotlight doesn't disturb me. I asked my staff why we are in the back pages of every newspaper. It doesn't disturb me whatsoever."

He has also had meetings with players and staff in a bid to arrest the poor form, which has seen the club lose four of their last seven matches.

"Everybody wants to get out of a situation like this," he said. "At least when you have three games one after the other every one gives you an opportunity to get back on track and that is exactly our focus."

"We have meetings [with the players] frequently. But that won't be the decisive key. The decisive key is to transfer what we do in training on to the pitch and hopefully that will bring us to a good result."

Wednesday's Champions League defeat to Bayer Leverkusen means they are in danger of dropping out of Europe's premier competition, and led to criticism from the German side's captain Michael Ballack, who spent four years at Stamford Bridge.

But Villas-Boas came out fighting ahead of tomorrow's match against Wolves by hitting back at Ballack.

The boss said: "Michael is always very self-opinionated and has a right to his opinion, but I disagree with him. He does not live in this dressing room. He was here before and he did not solve all the problems, so you have to do a self-analysis of that and draw your own conclusions."

Asked if he was tempted to change tactics, Villas-Boas said: "Our philosophy will be the last thing to die at this club. It is something that makes the technical staff and the players very, very proud, and what we have shown up to here, and even in moments of defeat, is something that we will stick with for the remainder of the season.

"We want to get the results right, of course, and we want to end this streak of defeats. Our belief is in our work, and we want to continue to do it."

But he added a note of caution as he admitted: "It might not be sufficient. When you are in a run of results like this you focus on hard work and the smallest of details but it might not be enough to make the difference between winning and losing. You need confidence, and that comes from a good run of results."

The clash with Wolves is the first of five key games in 17 days and Villas-Boas highlighted the match with Valencia as the biggest of the lot.Chelsea need a 0-0 draw or win at Stamford Bridge to progress and the boss said: "The game against Valencia will be a situation of life or death in that group. It is either one team or the other who will go through to the last 16."

Villas-Boas says he will not make radical changes in his team selection tomorrow, with speculation surrounding the position of Fernando Torres, who has been relegated to a substitute's role in recent weeks. Yet he maintained the striker is not struggling for form and said: "Fernando is up for contention like he has always been."

The question is whether Torres can oust Didier Drogba, who has fully recovered from a broken arm. The boss said: "We play 4-3-3, so there are four top strikers competing for three places."

Ashley Cole has recovered from an ankle inflammation and will return at left-back against Wolves.